The Scarf
by looneylizzie
Summary: Daniel frowned as he removed the object – a long piece of fabric that wasn't white, but beige, with tassels on either end – trying to place where he could have possibly gotten it. Then it hit him like staff weapon blast to the gut. Vala's scarf.
1. Lost

**Hey guys! So this is my first time writing Daniel, so please be kind. :P  
** **Also, this is set sometime in season 9 - about six months after the events of 9x06** _ **Beachhead**_ **, which has a scene that is the entire basis of this little one-shot.**

 **As always, I own nothing you recognize, and be sure to let me know what you think!**

* * *

Daniel Jackson entered his office and sat down with a sigh, placing his extra large mug of coffee in a tiny clear space between stacks of papers on his cluttered desk.

He felt exhausted.

But Daniel had to admit, while exhaustion wasn't an unusual feeling for him – he'd felt exhausted for most of the last nine years with the SGC – this was something different. It was the kind of exhaustion that left his brain fuzzy and slow and had him yawning every ten minutes.

As if on queue, Daniel yawned widely, then took his glasses off to rub at his eyes, hoping to clear the general feeling of sluggishness that had plagued him the last few weeks. He took a large gulp of coffee, holding onto the mug as if it was his only link to humanity.

Which it sort of was.

Smiling to himself, he took another drink before setting the mug back on the desk, forcing himself to focus on the text he'd left half finished the night before after he'd caught himself drifting off mid-sentence.

Squinting at the tiny text, he felt the world go fuzzy again, and Daniel sighed. Again. There was no way he could focus on work when he still felt so groggy. He looked up instead, deciding to do something, _anything_ else to keep himself awake.

As he surveyed the room, he realized what a giant mess it was. He'd never been the neatest of people, but his office looked like a tornado had blown through it. Or Jack. Multiple times.

 _I guess cleaning is better than doing nothing_ , he thought. Another gulp of coffee got him to his feet, and he started putting things away. The movement got his blood flowing, and soon enough Daniel was feeling a little more awake. Plus, straightening things up made him feel a little better.

As he sorted through a rather large stack of papers and books, something large, black and heavy slid to the floor, taking most of the pile with it. Daniel cursed under his breath and bent down to pick the strange object up, quickly identifying it as a tac vest.

Making a mental note to return the vest to the armory, he went to place it on his chair when something white flashed out of the corner of his eye. A closer look revealed something poking out of one of the vest pockets.

Daniel frowned as he removed the object – a long piece of fabric that wasn't white, but beige, with tassels on either end – trying to place where he could have possibly gotten it.

Then it hit him like staff weapon blast to the gut.

Vala's scarf.

Immediately, the image of Vala Mal Doran standing on the ramp in front of the Gate flashed in his mind's eye; her eyes narrowed as she pointed at General Landry as she warned him about Nerus in an indignant tone before tossing one end of the scarf over her shoulder and spinning around, marching up the ramp with her chin in the air.

He almost laughed out loud at the memory, though at the time all he'd wanted to do was throw another pillow at her. Instead, he'd taken the earliest opportunity to confiscate the ridiculous scarf.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o**

" _Vala, this is a military vessel," he'd said as he'd pulled the scarf from around her neck._

 _"I know, darling. I've stolen it before," she quipped._

 _Daniel resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Well, just try to be uh…"_

 _"My charming self?" she said innocently, though she fixing him with a challenging stare._

 _"Just a little less talk; a little more shut-the-hell up," Daniel finished with a brisk nod, turning away to follow his teammates._

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o**

Daniel leaned against the nearest bookshelf and sighed, remembering how much she'd infuriated him. How her "accessories" had irritated him. How her entire… demeanor irked him.

It didn't help that she'd jerked them around, especially Daniel – how could it not drive him nuts? She'd lied, cheated, stolen… he looked down at the scarf and groaned.

She'd probably stolen the scarf in the first place.

How had he not figured that out?

The all-too-familiar feeling of annoyance washed over him. A feeling he'd come to quickly associate with Vala. He almost wished she was around so he could yell at her.

His heart stopped cold. But she wasn't here. She was gone. Gone and probably dead.

And she'd sacrificed herself to save them. To save the galaxy.

And she'd died thinking that he didn't care.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o**

" _Vala? Where the hell are you?" he asked over the radio, a feeling of dread pooling in his stomach. Whatever she was doing couldn't be good._

 _"Oh, you care now?" she said sarcastically._

 _Daniel had to admit that stung a little. "What are you doing?"_

 _"Trying to help, Daniel. Someone had to do something, and you wouldn't listen."_

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o**

Daniel sunk into his seat, squeezing the scarf tightly in his fist, anger bubbling inside him again. Though this time it wasn't at Vala, but at himself.

He should've listened. He should've realized that something was different, that she had a stake in the fight against the Ori, and genuinely wanted to help. He should've seen through her front and realized that she'd changed after their visit to P8X-412, after they failed to stop the Prior from taking over the village.

Even then, on P8X-412, he hadn't cared much about what she was going through. He'd just seen it as an opportunity to try and beat the Prior, to prevent them from getting one more foothold in the galaxy.

Vala had gotten involved, even if she didn't have to, and all he'd done was ignore her and treat her like a nuisance… like a badly behaved puppy following him around. He let her think that he couldn't wait to get rid of her.

 _But it's true... you really didn't care,_ Daniel thought, and he hung his head in shame. When had he gotten so jaded; so cold? When had he stopped believing in people? When had he stopped believing in second chances?

He shook his head. No, he couldn't- _wouldn't_ give up. He would see Vala again. Sam had said that there was a chance she was alive and in the Ori galaxy, and Daniel was going to believe in that chance, however small.

And next time, he'd give her a second chance.

Standing up, he hung the scarf over the neck of the lamp on his desk and smiled. Oh yes, she'd be back.

Besides, who knew what sort of mayhem Vala would unleash on the Ori galaxy.


	2. Found

**Right, so I hadn't planned on writing this second part, but it kinda hit me out of the blue (not unlike the first part), so I just went with it. This part is quite a bit longer and from Vala's POV (sorry Daniel fans!) and relatively unedited, so I apologize for how ridiculously bad it is.**

 **This is set directly after 10x01 "Flesh and Blood" and is sort of the root of where a couple of things both Daniel and Vala say in 10x02 "Morpheus" - at least in my head. :D**

 **Also, I don't own Stargate or its wonderful characters that I so greatly enjoy playing with.**

 **Let me know what you think!**

* * *

Vala Mal Doran knocked on the wall next to the open door of the office. "Daniel?" she asked hesitantly, poking her head into the room.

Daniel Jackson looked up from his books and smiled briefly. "Hey, Dr. Lam check you out?"

She nodded and stepped into the room, forcing herself to grin broadly. "Yep. She says that they'll take the bandages off in a day or two, but there's no reason I need to be cooped up in that awful infirmary." She sat down on the empty stool across the table, unconsciously putting her hand over the spot when she felt a faint twinge of pain where it was still a bit sore.

"Good, good," he said with muted enthusiasm, his head bobbing up and down. "You okay otherwise? Do you want me to take you to the guest quarters so you can get some rest?" he asked in the sort of way that made her feel like she was made of glass and that he was afraid of breaking her.

She _hated_ that feeling.

Although she certainly felt as though she could break at any moment.

But the idea of being alone… no, too much had happened, and sitting around would likely drown her in emotions she didn't want to handle yet. Or ever.

Vala shook her head emphatically. "No, I'd rather not…" she trailed off, refusing to look Daniel in the eye.

"...be alone?" he finished for her.

She nodded. "If you don't mind," she added uncertainly.

"Of course not," he replied with a shrug.

An awkward silence fell between the two, during which Vala bit her lip. She wasn't quite sure what to say. Sure, she could find something… anything to talk about, but for once she just didn't want to talk about something mindless in order to annoy Daniel.

It was Daniel who finally broke the silence. "You didn't have to do that, you know," he said, referring to her injury.

Vala scoffed. "Well I couldn't very well let Tomin kill you, could I?"

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o**

 _Tomin entered Adria's quarters, shoving Daniel into the center of the room with his weaponed aimed at her… friend's?... back. Tomin's face was stony, though his eyes flashed with anger and, worst of all, betrayal. It was the sort of expression she'd seen aimed at her thousand times before, though that didn't make it hurt any less._

" _They were conspiring against you!" Tomin shouted, addressing Adria._

" _Yes, I know," Adria said, golden eyes flashing as she crossed her arms. "Kill him."_

" _No!" Vala cried, stepping forward so that she stood between Tomin and Daniel. "Wait! We want to talk to you."_

 _Tomin clenched his jaw and the anger in his eyes gave in to something else, something colder. "Move!"_

" _I said, kill him!" Adria commanded, the words sounding authoritative despite the fact that it was a young girl who was saying them._

 _Vala saw Tomin shift as he started to fire, and she reacted without thought. "No!" She turned to push Daniel back and heard a sizzle of electricity just before a blast hit her in the abdomen. She fell to the ground, the air smelling of burned fabric and flesh and Vala's every nerve was on fire._

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o**

"Besides, I knew Adria would heal me," Vala said with mock confidence. It was a half-truth that he probably saw right through, but thankfully he didn't call her out on it.

"Still," Daniel said softly. "I owe you one. _We_ owe you one, for what you did, shutting down the first supergate. You saved a lot of lives that day." His expression was open, honest, perhaps even… grateful?

Vala blinked, surprised. Her instinct was to brush it off, or make some flippant remark, but she just couldn't bring herself to do it. She looked down at her hands, which were fidgeting in her lap. "I suppose I owe you one as well. You got me off that ship when you could've grabbed Adria."

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o**

" _Mother!" Adria cried, rushing to Vala's side._

 _Tomin dropped his weapon and did the same, immediately reaching for his wife. "Vala?" he asked in a slightly panicked voice as he turned her onto her back._

 _Vala groaned as the wound seemed to burn hotter, though through the pain she managed to recognize that Adria's hand was on her stomach, healing her. Then there was a flash of blue light and suddenly she wasn't, and the girl toppled over, unconscious. Another flash of blue and Tomin was knocked backwards, unconscious before he even hit the ground._

" _You couldn't have waited until she'd finished healing me?" Vala exclaimed as Daniel leaned down to help her._

" _Well, she was distracted," Daniel grumbled, his grip tight and reassuring on Vala's shoulders as he began pulling her upright._

 _Vala grunted in pain as she moved, her mind racing with possible escape plans, only one of which seemed most likely to succeed. "Leave me, grab her."_

" _Oh yeah, like that's going to happen," he retorted, holding onto her until she got her balance._

 _Seconds later, when it seemed like a Prior was about to kill them both, his arms wrapped around her and the world turned white as the Odyssey beamed them up to safety._

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o**

Daniel smirked. "Well, I couldn't very well leave you behind, could I?" he said, mimicking the tone from her earlier comment.

The way he said it, so similar to the way he'd said _"Oh yeah, like that's going to happen"_ on the ship - like it was the most obvious thing in the world secretly made Vala want to smile. It was almost like he _cared_.

"I guess we'll have to call it even then," Vala compromised.

It was Daniel's turn to look surprised. "You're not still mad that I grabbed you and left her? Or that I tried to kill her? Your _daughter_?"

Vala wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. Her emotions were just one big jumbled mess at the moment. Perhaps she was angry that he'd tried to kill her daughter, but it wasn't like she could blame him. Adria was hardly her daughter, no matter how much Vala wanted to believe that their relationship might be the key to stopping her.

And perhaps she was mad that Daniel saved her rather than taken the chance, no matter how small it might have been, to kidnap Adria and turn her against the Ori and possibly save the galaxy. But on the other hand, he had chosen to save _her_.

No one had chosen Vala over something else before. Especially not with so much at stake.

But guilt and sadness seemed to overwhelm any anger that she might feel. Guilt that three days ago she had literally just given birth to the most evil thing to scour the galaxy and was hell bent on total domination over it.

The sadness that weighed heavily on her also confused her to no end. It came from a sense of loss - which wasn't unfounded - for months she'd had a husband who loved her, who loved her baby. It had been impossible, despite all of the anxiety and sense of impending doom that hung over her time in the Ori galaxy, for a part of her to fall in love with Tomin, with her baby, and with the idea of having a family, a home. All of which was gone now.

Something else was bubbled to the surface, the one emotion Vala welcomed wholeheartedly.

"Right now, I'm just relieved. I've been trying to get home for so long-" she started.

"Home?" Daniel asked, eyebrows raised.

Vala's stomach sank. Of course. What had she been thinking? Earth wasn't her home. It just happened to be the last place she'd been before getting sucked into the Ori galaxy and the nightmare that followed. It had been the last place that she felt safe.

She didn't have a home. She hadn't for a long time.

Suddenly she felt like a lost little girl again, all alone in the world with no one to rely on but herself.

"Home to this galaxy, of course," she corrected, hoping that she recovered in time.

"Ah," Daniel replied, though he didn't seem to believe her.

Another silence filled the room, and Vala's stomach churned uncomfortably. She wasn't wanted. After everything, she still wasn't wanted. Daniel didn't trust her any more than he had the day they met - probably even less. She'd thought, perhaps even hoped, that they would want her to help fight the Ori - fight Adria - but she'd been mistaken. Again.

And it hurt.

And it hurt even more because she was already hurting.

"Well," Vala said, clapping her hands and jumping off of the stool, hiding a wince as she landed. "I'm going to go back to the guest quarters, maybe even get a something to eat on the way," she said cheerfully, though even to her ears it sounded fake. "Tell General Landry that I'll be out of your hair in a day or two, once Dr. Lam says so."

She turned to go, and then felt a hand close around her wrist. "Wait," Daniel murmured.

She looked back to him, curious as to what he could possibly say. His eyes met hers, blue into blue. His mouth opened, but he couldn't seem to find the right words, so they stood like that for several moments, until Daniel finally huffed and dropped her arm. He turned toward his desk and Vala's heart sunk to her toes. Blinking back tears, she made her way to the exit, hoping that she could make it back to her quarters without breaking down.

"Here," Daniel said softly, halting Vala in her tracks.

Slowly, haltingly, she turned to look at him - at what he was holding out to her. She frowned, eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she stared at the white piece of fabric dangling from his fingers. It took her a moment, but eventually she recognized it; her scarf. The one she'd been wearing the day she was sucked into the Ori galaxy.

Daniel had taken it from her for some stupid reason or another, but she hadn't thought about it since.

But apparently, Daniel had kept it.

Vala smiled. "You kept it," she said softly.

His cheeks flushed slightly, but he nodded. "As a reminder."

She raised an eyebrow. "Of me?"

He blushed harder. "No, I mean, yes… but it's also a reminder of second chances. To believe in people, no matter their past. And that we were going to find you… bring you ho- back."

 _Bring you home_ , he'd nearly said. His correction was more for her sake than for his, she thought, and it made all the difference in the galaxy.

Daniel had found her, saved her and brought her back to Earth. And now he was standing in front of her offering something that was much, much more than just a scarf.

A second chance.

A home.

Because he _believed_ in her, even if he hadn't said it out loud.

The smile that formed on Vala's lips was a gradual one, widening as her heart lifted with joy. She pulled the scarf from his fingers and wrapped it around her neck with satisfaction. "Thank you," she said sincerely, and was rewarded with a genuine smile from Daniel.

"Come on," he said, nudging her with his hip. "Let's go get some food. With any luck, there'll be cake…"

At that, Vala followed, a new bounce in her step that she hadn't had in a long time.


End file.
